The frozen and packaged food giant has worked with Cramer-Krasselt in the U.S. and a handful of shops abroad, including Omnicom in Russia, IPG in India and Dentsu's Aegis in some other markets. Cramer-Krasselt also supports creative for Heinz in the U.S.

"Heinz is pleased to announce its partnership with global ad agencies, Omnicom and Interpublic Group (IPG), effective July 1," the company said in a statement. "Omnicom has been awarded the vast majority of our global media business and will act as our key media agency moving forward, with IPG serving as the primary agency for our North American business. This decision was made after a comprehensive six month review process, in which our 20 global media agencies were simplified to two in order to better leverage our media buying and planning. As a result, we look forward to working with Omnicom and IPG to more efficiently leverage the scope and scale of the global Heinz brand."

Aegis and WPP's Mediacom were also pitching for the business in the lengthy review. Cramer-Krasselt was not involved in the pitch, an agency spokeswoman said. Other agencies mentioned either declined to comment or couldn't immediately be reached.

Heinz spends over $200 million abroad, according to people familiar with the matter.

It spent $43.5 million on measured U.S. media in 2013, according to Kantar Media. That's down from the $50 million it spent in 2012, but 2014 might be a different story. Heinz, which is known as a frugal advertiser, poured millions of dollars into a Super Bowl spot for its namesake ketchup. The 30-second spot from Cramer-Krasselt, Chicago, was only the second Super Bowl ad in the brand's history, the last one being 16 years ago.

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Alexandra Bruell

Alexandra bruell is the lead agency reporter at Advertising Age. She specializes in coverage of digital, media buying & planning and PR. Prior to joining Ad Age in May 2011, she was a senior reporter at PRWeek. Earlier in her career she worked at a small healthcare ad agency then called TheCementWorks. She earned her BA at Tulane University.